As usual, the annual Boxing Day visit with my grandfather was brightened this year by his 82 year-old girlfriend.

“I like a tall man,” she shared, “None of these goddamn little squirts. Annik, how tall is your boyfriend?”

“I’m not really sure. I think he’s about 5’9″?”

“Well that’s no good. You should get a new one.”

Concerned about the oddities of my family, I recently asked my boyfriend whether he likes my parents.

“I like your dad,” he replied.

I once dated what I thought was a smart guy. On our fourth (and final) date, we were out having drinks when I made a joke about being a supermodel.

“Oh my god!” he snorted, “That’s hilarious! I mean, you’re gorgeous, but you could never be a supermodel!”

I know that, cocknose.

When I was nineteen, I shared a house in West Ryde with a twenty-six year old tradesman. This meant that 80% of the fridge space was taken up by beer and the TV could always be heard from halfway down the street, but apart from that, he was an acceptable housemate.

When summer began, my housemate’s co-workers started coming over regularly to work on their cars in our large backyard. Undeterred, I continued my strict sun-bathing regime and spent every afternoon lying on the trampoline in a bikini. Gradually, I gained the attention of one of these guys, and once I knew I had it in the bag, I told my housemate to hand over my phone number.

“Why would you want to date him?” my friends asked, “He’s a tradie.”
“Don’t be so judgmental,” I scolded, “Just because he breaks stuff for a living doesn’t mean he isn’t intelligent, charming and interesting.”

A week later, I received the following text message:

Hey, how rya? Do ya wanna go out 1 nite dis week n grab sum food n shit?

I sunbaked in the front yard after that.

Last week, during a quiet moment at the office, I completed a “Dating Profile” Quiz on OKCupid.com. After I filled in my age, gender, sexual orientation, and general views on dating etiquette, I came across the following question:

Who would you rather walk in on you while masturbating?
a) your mother, or
b) your father

I’m sorry, what? Where is secret option c) – I’d rather tend bee hives naked with a daisy in my arsehole?

The wording of the question wasn’t crystal clear either. Are my parents barging in with their hands down their pants while I calmly sit and drink peppermint tea, or am I wanking with the door open? And which scenario would require the greatest number of therapy sessions to combat the resulting drug and alcohol addiction and chilling nightmares?

When I completed the quiz, it told me I was “The Window Shopper.” Apparently, I am slutty with my eyes, and then discerning with my hands. I figure that’s better than the other way around. But then this high-brow evaluation told me, “You tend to obsess over men who you have only recently met.” I snorted and shook my head in disgust, then read every wall-to-wall Facebook conversation of the guy I picked up the weekend before.

Unless I appoint myself a title, I generally do not like to be assigned labels or slotted into any particular category of society. Earlier this year, I announced to my boyfriend at the time that I was planning on stopping smoking. (Note: “Stopping” sounds easier than “quitting”, as I stop things constantly – my car, the dryer, anybody unbuttoning my jeans, etc – while “quitting” implies defeat, and “giving up” has connotations of abstaining from something desirable. I am fussy with my verbs.) “Don’t worry,” the boyfriend said supportively, patting me on the head, “You’ll smoke again. That’s what smokers do.”
Smokers. Excuse me? Who’s a smoker? Admittedly, I enjoyed the odd cigarette – up to half a pack a day – most days since I was fifteen, but that did not make me a Smoker. Did it?? When asked whether I smoked, I would usually reply, “Only socially. And alone.” There was nothing false about that statement, but it generally did not sit comfortably with others.

How many times does one need to commit an act before being assigned a title and stuffed into a pigeon-hole? I have kissed girls, but I’m not a lesbian. I have prayed, but I’m not a Christian. I have stolen, but I’m not a thief. I’ve taken drugs, but I’m not a junkie.

To be honest, I find it offensive that the internet so often requests me to define my entire self by ticking a bunch of boxes. And whenever it graciously allows me the freedom to “describe myself in a few paragraphs”, I usually respond with the only thing genuinely applicable:

I am Annik.

Last week I met up for drinks with an ex-boyfriend. He was very much an ex — by almost seven years — and I felt that enough time had elapsed to allow us to develop some kind of platonic relationship.

I picked him up from the shopping centre where he worked and we hugged tentatively, then I babbled about work and my new car as if nothing else of note had happened to me since grade 9. Fortunately, I require an embarrassingly small amount of alcohol on weeknights to become intoxicated. An hour, no dinner, and three beers later, I was chatting quite comfortably about everything in my life and throwing in some religious and political theories for good measure. The ex was in the middle of telling me about the hideous end of his latest romantic relationship, when he mentioned the fact that he was now seeing somebody new. I initially thought he was referring to me, and panicked, then realised he didn’t mean me, and immediately felt slighted. I took a large sip of my beer in an attempt to hide the fact that for some reason, I really didn’t want to be listening to this. Then I excused myself to use the bathroom, snuck through the beer garden and drove home.

The problem wasn’t that I planned to reinstate this guy as boyfriend one day. God knows, if I wanted to be fifteen again, I’d wear a USA hoodie, drink a six-pack of Strongbow and vomit onto a rosebush. No, the issue here is that I never want to think about my old boyfriends moving on. In my mind, I let them recover enough to get past the stalking stage, but after that I like to imagine each of my ex’s sitting in his living room, unshaven and pantless, drinking whisky and watching day-time television through eyes clouded by addiction and blurred with tears, for the remainder of his miserable, regret-filled, post-Annik life. Occasionally he rises to urinate, wanders aimlessly through the house, and pauses to kneel at the shrine of photos, flowers and candles that he has erected in my honour. Then he crawls into bed and drinks cask-wine straight from the goon-bag, attempting to achieve the alcohol-induced coma in which he sometimes dreams of my beautiful face…

But the truth is, I’m usually the dumpee. It’s hard to imagine somebody being depressed about losing you when they’re the one who initiated the break-up. You would think that being constantly rejected would damage my self esteem, but I have somehow managed to maintain a high level of morale. I am mentally unable to process the fact that I could be anything but the perfect girlfriend. Whenever a guy tells me he wants to end things, I quickly remind him, “But I’m amazing. And gorgeous and smart. Are you gay or just stupid?” If that doesn’t work, I change tactic: “Well you can’t have me anymore anyway, cockbag!” and flounce from the room. As I drive to the nearest bottle shop, crying hysterically and swerving dangerously within my lane, I imagine him back home, sitting with his head in his hands as the full extent of the huge mistake he has just made dawns upon his tiny idiotic brain. He took me for granted. He didn’t know what he had until it was gone. He will never love again.

In reality, they always love again. One boyfriend loved again in front of me at the pub every Friday night. Another called me each weekend after he had gotten laid and gave me a blow-by-blow (no pun intended) description of his shag, analysed her technique and then provided a helpful comparison on what was better or worse about my own abilities. And my latest boyfriend didn’t even bother breaking up with me before loving again.

I think that every relationship, no matter how trivial or traumatic, has something valuable to offer us if we look at things the right way. I wouldn’t want a break-up to affect any of my ex-boyfriends’ abilities to love, just as I don’t let any of them affect my own ability to love. In fact, I kind of want my old boyfriends taken off the market, just to erase any potential sexual tension that may crop up in future chance encounters. And, because I’m not a bitter or spiteful person, I want my ex’s to find somebody they can be in a relationship with, and I want them to be happy. I just don’t want to hear about it.